Syria, freed after 12 years Ebla. Matthiae: Secure the necessary funds for the Italian mission.

The archaeological park of Ebla, the ancient city discovered in 1964 by Paul Matthiae, has been liberated by the Damascus government after 12 years of occupation by irregular militias: trenches had been dug in the ruins of temples, casemates set up inside the millennia-old walls. Devastated by years of occupation by al Qaeda’s irregular troops, the remains can now be secured and restored and then new archaeological research can begin. This was announced to ANSA by thearchaeologist, director emeritus of the research project, who will receive an award in Naxos this evening for communicating the ancient, a project of the Naxos Park in collaboration with Naxoslegge.

He said that, for the first time since 2010, members of the Italian mission will return to the site, which is located fifty kilometers from Aleppo, at Tell Mardikh, to begin a program of interventions to secure it and to be able to resume investigations where they had been interrupted.

"The damage quantified by the Directorate General of Antiquities in Damascus is enormous; restoring the sites will require at least three years and adequate funds," Matthiae says. The archaeologist now appeals to the Sapienza of Rome and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to guarantee all the necessary allocations for the mission.

Paolo Matthiae explains to ANSA that the devastation at Ebla began in 2014, when al Qaeda militiamen took over the park, devastating it with tunnels, trenches, and barracks “that disrupted the archaeological terrain, especially in the Lower Town of the great ancient urban center built between 2500 and 1600 B.C.” It was not until late 2019 that the government in Damascus gradually regained control over the area, and since then officials from the General Directorate of Antiquities and Museums (DGAM) have been working to verify the damage by photographing and documenting the area with drones as well.

However, the archaeologist assures that "the park was never bombed.“ It is ”an archaeological site that would still have so much to offer,“ Matthiae concludes, as ” only ten percent of it has been excavated."

Syria, freed after 12 years Ebla. Matthiae: Secure the necessary funds for the Italian mission.

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